Corn becomes a popular fiber.

Although the U.S. is largest producer of corn crops in the world, it still comes as a surprise that cornfields cover a whopping 72.7 million acres of land in the country. A high yield of fibrous matter from the crop has brought about developments in processing corn fibers for spinning yarns and fabrics, alongside technologies that bond corn fibers together to create non-woven materials like diapers and plastic containers.

Much of the fibrous part of the corn plant (stalk and leaves) is fed to animals, although a material called PLA (poly-lactic acid) is fast becoming an alternative that allows corn fibers to be in AND on our bodies.

Image: Nature Works LLC

During the last decade, a fiber processing company called Nature Works has been developing corn fibers for large-scale production of plant-based plastics and textile materials under the product name Ingeo. Acting as a replacement for polyesters, PLA is a fiber that can be turned into a range of textile grade yarns from its pelletized form. The material is said to use 20-50% less petroleum based resources than polyesters, is compostable and can be grown and processed annually to yield high amounts of fiber.

Considered part of the plant-based synthetics fiber group, PLA is derived from a plant sugar called dextrose obtained mostly from corn, as well as sugar beets, wheat or sugar cane, all common and necessary food crops. However, a somewhat green-washed notion that corn fabrics, or dextrose-based fabrics and materials are environmentally-friendly because they are “natural” and come from plants is covering up some of the larger issues in the corn and sugar processing industries.

Image: Fiber Innovation Technology

Up to 85% of the corn grown in the U.S. is genetically engineered, and incorporated into food like corn chips, cereals, sodas and peanut butter, as are the several other highly refined and chemically infested sources of sugar. Cargill was the first company behind the development of PLA, and coincidentally also the world’s largest producer of genetically engineered corn crops.

Fossil fuels are still largely employed for the harvest, processing, chemical production and shipping within the corn market, keeping the oil industry closely tied to corn production. Basically, PLA can be seen as a way to cover up the degradation caused by genetic engineering and chemical processing of resources for the food and livestock feed industries. So does supporting the production of corn-based textiles then give manufacturers another excuse to push farmers towards growing GMO crops and creating mono-crop cultures?

Image: Fiber Innovation Technology

Nature Works has come up with an offsetting program where buyers can choose to receive PLA fibers with GeneScan certified non-GMO corn, as well as a half GMO, half non-GMO fiber material. But why doesn’t Nature Works drive the production of completely GMO-free PLA, and even better, the production of PLA made from organic corn? The company claims to be looking into other sources of cellulosic feedstocks, but have not yet made a leap that excludes genetic modification or chemical intensive processing.

It seems that if the company were truly interested in developing sustainable material options for companies that require fibers, they would invest in experimenting with diverse materials that are by-products of environmentally friendly processes. Nature Works is looking into using agricultural waste from the rice and corn industries for fiber production in the name of closed-loop systems, but can that be called anything more that greenwashing if the sources for agricultural waste are not sustainably produced?

Image: Nature Works LLC

PLA has gained favor with outerwear companies that are always on the lookout for greener material options, such as Portland-based Nau and REI. Patagonia, one of the most environmentally conscious outerwear giants has, however, rejected the fiber. They view Nature Works’ choice to incorporate GMO corn in some of their materials as a largely negative factor that will not change the production processes of the corn industry in the long run.

Patagonia has taken a very realistic stance towards PLA production, and one that will hopefully cause apparel producers to put pressure on fiber suppliers to completely exclude GMO crops from their processes. PLA is a great technological development, but the industries and processes it currently relies on do not make it a sustainable option. That is why all of us along the demand and supply lines of fibers must begin to understand how important the sources and processing of these fibers are to the health of our planet and ourselves.

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The Sustainability Across America Tour is a journey to bring the eco-movement to the people in a grassroots, human kind of way.

I’m Laura Jones, a writer armed with my curiosity, my laptop and a VW van. I’m traveling around the USA to deliver this movement from the ethereal marketing-wash to the you, the people. This is a mission to connect the dots between the movers and the shakers in this emerging economy and developing philosophy, to share the wisdom of the pioneers and to crowd-source inspiration with the powers of social media.

So far I’ve been lucky to talk to some incredible forces in the movement, to those really working to push the limits of what conventional business and politics thought possible about sustainability. What I’m discovering is a story about the fuel that fires the emergence of a new way of life, of business, and of politics. It’s about compassion, it’s about community and it’s about empowering global citizens to take the reigns and create the world they want to live in.

Check out what Kevin Hagen, the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at REI had to say during an interview, just a couple weeks into this tour.

Kevin Hagen, Director of CSR at REI

“There’s this idea that you don’t know what you don’t know – unconscious incompetence. It’s a great place to be, very comfortable,” Kevin Hagen says with a laugh. Hagen is the Director of CSR for Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI), sometimes considered the “gorilla” of the outdoor industry, although they don’t behave as such.

He’s describing a sort of “state of the union” that is the outdoor industry today as it’s collected and collaborated amongst itself in a myriad of ways, organizing into groups like the Outdoor Industry Association and the Eco Working Group, both of which are working towards a sustainable industry, improving upon everything in the big picture of operations like product life cycle, retail buildings and collective carbon footprint. It’s only been since about 2005 since the industry drew together and decided that the traditional random acts of kindness form of CSR was simply inadequate, and Hagen describes the shift in consciousness that’s evolved since that time.

“The next stage up from unconscious incompetence is that you start to know that there are things that you don’t know, you start to realize that there are things you don’t understand, it’s bigger than a breadbox. That stage, some call the consciously incompetent stage.”

This realization has hit the outdoor industry close to home, and perhaps no other industry is more closely married to the interest of the environment. Still, sustainability encompasses more than just eco-friendly materials and benign product design; it also entails a consciousness around social justice.

These are all things that the industry, perhaps under the lead of REI, has embraced and put into practice. Over the past four years, a collection of brands, businesses, nonprofits and government organizations have collaborated on progressive programs, like setting expectations on fair labor code that operate independent of local government enforcement. They’ve decided to shoulder the weight of product life cycle and the environmental impact of manufacture instead of passing it on to the consumer or off-shoring it to another’s land.

Hagen continues to describe this philosophical shift around sustainability with what I would call naked emotion – there’s no marketing spin to his statements.

“I would say that as a business and as an industry, we’re fully embracing conscious incompetence when it comes to sustainability. I think that that stage is really enlightening on one hand, frightening on the other, and it causes the average individual to have two places to go from there – denial, which is okay, it works for a while, or despair. I think the next step though, because neither of those are very good answers, is that if you’re working on something that works, and you have a good example at hand, you can move forward into a period of hope. And, as soon as you make that shift individually and organizationally, form despair into hope, you can really catch the fire and start to realize that one step at a time can start to make huge differences.”

He spends a little time reflecting on the plight of the retailer who, like many of us, is just trying to make a living. What the collective at REI has begun to realize is that both the public and their employees count the company responsible for the environmental and social impacts of products from Cradle to Cradle, and Hagen says, “I think that’s a hard pill to swallow for most retailers.”

But the revolution in the retail industry has come recently and from what some may deem an unlikely source: Wal-Mart. This July, the company announced that it will develop a sustainable product index, to assist in developing the tools that will enable sustainable consumption on a global scale.

Hagen says, “I think what’s fabulous about that is that now, no retailer on the face of the planet will be able to say, ‘Not my problem, not my job’ because Wal-Mart says its their job. That’s revolutionary.”

So that’s where we stand today, with a wholehearted acceptance that we are consciously incompetent, a battery of positive examples of things that work, and most importantly, a well of hope.

Once conscious companies like Wal-Mart and REI have set the stage, it’s like Hagen says, “We can turn the free market loose on this problem. We’ve always counted on our suppliers to amaze us, so if we give them the right direction, if we can give them the guardrails, they will amaze us again.”

Editor’s note: EcoSalon is an official sponsor of the Sustainability Across America Tour.

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